| A reply from Audible about DRM |
[Sep. 22nd, 2008|04:44 pm] |
As mentioned in my post entitled A note to Audible about DRM, I wrote to Audible about the DRM in their audiobooks. I have since received a reply:
Dear Jeremy,
Thank you for contacting Audible.com. On its behalf, I would like to apologize
for any inconvenience and I am most committed to satisfying and resolving your
inquiry to the fullest of my abilities.
As per your email, I can understand how the DRM can cause such an inconvenience
to customers, and that others have found a way to work around the DRM which
seems to be listed online. However to further elaborate on the DRM, it is
important on our end to support it because majority of publishers would prefer
their content to be protected. You see without the DRM we would not be able to
distribute the majority of our 50,000 titles.
Now as for Amazon, I personally have not heard anything about us dropping the
DRM, due to a high volume of complaints. So I do apologize, but since I haven't
heard of anything, I would not honestly be able to comment on this rumor. Again
thank you for contacting us here at Audible and have a great day!!
Here at Audible, we truly value and appreciate your business; if you need
further assistance, please respond to this email or if you wish, please provide
me with a contact number and the best available time to reach you.
For additional questions, how to contact us and hours of operation, please
visit us at: www.audible.com/contactus
Sincerely,
Reggie M.
Audible Customer Support
It seems that, as expected, nothing is going to be done about the situation. This is sad, since I would probably spend quite a lot of money there if I were allowed to.
Ah well, there are still wonderful places like Escape Pod, Pseudopod, Podcastle, Variant Frequencies and Podiobooks where I can get high quality audio stories. |
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| The political compass |
[Sep. 19th, 2008|12:26 pm] |
Recently, there has been a spate of people taking the Political Compass test. Much of this has been spawned by the Political Compass graph generated by Michael Gorven.
More recently, Jonathan mentioned that while the scores are interesting (note particularly the leftist libertarian clustering of most of CLUG) it would be far more interesting to have people display their answers along with their reasoning. Since I had a bit of time on my hands (in short bursts) I have done this.
( Behind the cut, because it's rather a lot of text )
And now the result:
Economic Left/Right: 0.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.38
Over the last year and a half or so, I have wandered around the graph about a third of the way down the Libertarian axis and partly into the Right. This is the most Liberal I have ever been, though. I blame those hippies I associate with every Tuesday night and often in between. Seriously, I suspect a lot of it depends on my mood at the time and I'm vacillating between normal and strong responses on a couple of issues, mostly around regulation.
Feel free to comment on my answers. I'd also like to see other people do the same thing, so drop me a note if you do. |
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| A note to Audible about DRM |
[Sep. 17th, 2008|10:29 am] |
A while ago, I signed up for a subscription with Audible, the internet's leading retailer of audio fiction. Due to DRM issues and my inability to actually listen to their books except under very limited circumstances, I canceled my subscription shortly thereafter. Since then, they have periodically sent me emails with special offers in them to tempt me back. Here is my response to the most recent:
Good day,
I keep receiving special offers from Audible which appear to be designed to
regain me as a customer. I signed up several months ago in response to an
advert in some podcasts I listen to[1] and was very pleased with the audio
quality and production values of the books I purchased.
However, the DRM restrictions placed on the books required me to change
operating systems and listen to the books on my computer rather than my mobile
mp3 player. Since I primarily listen to audiobooks in the car and at gym, this
is a deal-breaker for me and the reason I canceled my subscription.
The fact that DRM doesn't really work is common knowledge. A brief Google
search yields a number of ways to strip Audible DRM protections from
audiobooks, but all of them require more time and effort than I am willing to
expend. This means that the DRM isn't stopping the pirates (since they are
prepared to put in the effort) but it is stopping legitimate customers, such as
myself.
I believe an Amazon spokesperson has said that if enough people complain,
Audible will consider removing the DRM on their audiobooks.[2] I would very
much like this to be the case. In their current form, Audible books just aren't
very useful to me.
I intend to post the contents of this email on my blog[3], and would like to
post any response I receive as well, although I will obviously respect your
wishes should you ask me not to.
Thank you,
Jeremy Thurgood
[1] Escape Pod (http://escapepod.org), Pesudopod (http://pseudopod.org)
and Podcastle (http://podcastle.org)
[2] Via Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/31/amazon-buys-audible.html
[3] http://jerith.livejournal.com/
I don't really expect a useful response, but hopefully something will be done. As mentioned in the letter, I shall post any response I receive unless they ask me not to.
Update: I have received a reply from Audible |
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| Don't bring thin skin to the internet |
[Jul. 2nd, 2008|07:14 pm] |
I had an all-too-frequent argument this evening. This resulted (as it occasionally does) with the other person storming off in a huff, all offended. The conversations usually goes something like this:
Him: I like $broken_technology.
Me: $broken_technology is very seldom a good idea. Why do you like it?
Him: Because $common_misconception.
Me: Actually, that's a common misconception. $correction.
Him: But are there any $not_broken_technology things that do $common_misconception_thing.
Me: Yes, plenty. For example, $thing.
Him: Um, but $other_misconception.
Me: Actually, $other_correction.
Him: You people are a pack of technobigots! *storms off in a huff*.
Part of the problem is that I suffer from SIWOTI Syndrome. I find it incredibly difficult to just let people sabotage themselves because they believe something that is not true. Part of the problem is that I want to teach people to think rationally about their behaviours and motivations, because it's the only way to avoid muddling around in a fug of lies and excuses. Part of the problem is that I get too emotionally invested in trying to better the lives of strangers when I can see exactly where they are making their mistakes and have the data to back it up.
Also, to be perfectly honest, I like to be right. I like to dispense wisdom. I enjoy being the expert people come to when they have a programming problem. Being the authority is nice. It makes me all warm and fuzzy when people do something better because of advice I gave them.
The real problem is that people don't like to be wrong. Thinking is hard. The misconceptions are comfortable old friends. The work they have done under those misconceptions represents effort that they may need to throw away. This makes people defend their misconceptions. It also makes them see an attack on a misconception as an attack on them personally.
This is where the subject comes in. As soon as you take anything on the internet personally, you're opening yourself up to pain. It hurts me when my laboriously collected wisdom is written off as bigotry. It hurts you a lot more when you take a request for data backing up your assertions as "getting ganged by zealots".
I don't really have a good answer. I could probably be a bit more diplomatic, but it's difficult to say "you're not making sense" in a way that doesn't offend those with delicate sensibilities. I could just ignore people being wrong, but occasionally I do enlighten some poor soul who has merely been led astray by the propaganda machines and is capable of becoming a useful and productive member of the community. (That's not to say the others aren't, just that they need to shed some ego first.)
Another side effect of my SIWOTI is that I often come across as arrogant. Sometimes this is me misjudging the level at which to pitch my explanations and coming across as patronising (if I pitch too low) or elitist (if I pitch too high). Then if I ask a few questions to judge background, I'm interrogating instead of helping. Sometimes it's because I tell people they're wrong. If I kept quiet or only answered the questions asked, even when they pointed to deeper misunderstandings or flaws, I could avoid these issues. But then people would keep being wrong. And we can't have that. |
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| Another one falls... |
[Jan. 28th, 2008|02:31 pm] |
Today, one of the guys I work with (any rumours that I occasionally kick his legs under the desk are entirely unfounded) started a blog. As of this post, Primitive Type is completely empty, but the important thing is that it's there.
Another colleague with a blog is Liehann at Profound Coffee. Expect to read quite a lot about mountain bikes here.
Here ends the shameless mutual-marketing post. |
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| Houses and hacking |
[Oct. 7th, 2007|04:11 pm] |
As of this afternoon, I have the keys to my new (temporary) residence in Observatory. It has two spare bedrooms, so if you want to visit me in Cape Town, do it before the end of January. :-)
I have been playing with Project Euler quite a bit recently. It's a fun little project where they give you a bunch of short mathematical programming problems. Most of the problems are less than an hour's work to solve, although there are a few that take longer. I've been using them to get some Erlang experience, and you can find my solutions in a darcs repository at http://darcs.jerith.za.net/projecteuler/ or you can grab projecteuler.erl directly. |
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| Local spam? |
[Jun. 14th, 2007|09:40 am] |
I got this on my CLUG address, of all things.
HTML stripped (because it's ugly), email addresses of the guilty left intact.
Note at the end how they're offering me their spam database as well.
From: Database Programs <databaseprograms@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Database Development for R5500!
To reply or be removed send email to: lwdatabasedev@yahoo.co.uk
Laurinda Wernars 076 135 7601
lwdatabasedev@yahoo.co.uk or lwdatabasedev@iburst.co.za
P.O. Box 121 Honeydew 2040
Personalised Database Design
Get your company’s information organised!
Existing Databases or Developed to your specifications at a price you
can afford. Written in MS Access 2000, the following have been
developed and are being used extensively by the companies they were
written for. The databases have assisted the companies in
streamlining the workload and managing the workflow.
Examples:
Sales / Customer Relationship Management Keep Track of deals the sales
staff are working on, when follow up needs to happen, appointments
with Customers that are due. What product / service is most sought
after, and how successful are they on each deal.
Fault Tracking & Reporting Any and all equipment brought in for
repairs, who the technician was, what components were at fault, what
still hasn’t been handled. Reports on any of the above criteria and
more.
Employment / Recruiting Keep track of candidates interested in new
careers, search and sort by criteria such as AA, Area, Qualifications,
Industries worked in. Also keep track of Jobs to be filled for
Clients, specifications, interviews setup, follow up needed etc.
Training A complete solution for small to medium sized training
companies. From trainers to learners, to equipment required, to
venue, to marketing drives and last but not least automatic
certificate printing by simply entering the date it will complete the
learner information, course attended and even put in electronic
signatures of the trainer and Owner / Director of the company! This
is a must have for any company dealing with the Seta’s
Auditing / Tax Consultants A complete client listing as required by
the Seta. Tracking of Submission of Information to Receiver, Annual
Returns, Information Act data etc. Keep everything in one place at
your finger tips!
Property Management
List all pertinent information regarding Landlords, Tenants and
Properties with links to actual contracts. Search facilities for
available properties. Property inspection timetable etc.
Extensive Month End Reports available on all of the above!
ALSO ON OFFER:
I have an extensive database of company names and email addressed in
various industries throughout South Africa! If you are looking at
extending your marketing contact me for a quote on what I have. |
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| FNB does something right |
[May. 18th, 2007|10:58 am] |
The other day I received a phishing email targeting First National Bank, so I forwarded it to their online fraud thingy:
From: Jeremy Thurgood
To: Risk Online
Subject: Phishing email
Good day,
Attached is a phishing email I received targeting FNB. I am not an FNB=20
customer myself and the phish is rather obvious, but I thought I'd=20
forward it in case you weren't aware of this particular incarnation.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Today I received a reply:
From: "Risk Online" <risk.online@fnb.co.za>
To: "Jeremy Thurgood"
Dear Jeremy,
"Thank you" for taking the time to inform us about the suspicious email
you received and forwarding us the actual email.
The e-mail you received which appeared to be from FNB is not legitimate.
It is part of a fraudulent scam to illegally acquire your personal
financial information.
We are aware of the Phishing scam and advise that the fraudulent website
is in the process of being shut down.
Please do not to access websites through links in e-mails, rather type
the site address directly into the browser address bar.
Regards,
FNB Online Risk
Risk.online@fnb.co.za
I don't know why they felt the need to quote "Thank you", but it's nice to see that they're actually taking some notice of this kind of thing. It's a very poor reflection on the current state of the banking industry that this is surprising... |
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| The best 419 yet |
[Apr. 20th, 2007|10:47 am] |
This is the best 419 scam email I have ever received:
From: "john mitchell" <mitch1254@hotmail.co.uk>
Subject: From: John Mitchell
From: John Mitchell
Mitchell & Associates,
18 Princess Way
Swansea SA1 3LW
United Kingdom
Direct Line: 447031844151
Compliments!
May I crave your indulgence to solicit your co-operation for partnership.
The protracted quest in locating relatives of my deceased client has been
fruitless. However, since he is dead and no more and no trace of any of his
relatives living or dead after all the efforts I have made in the past years,
I want you to stand as my late client's next of kin/beneficiary here in London
to claim the cash deposit.
I will also like you to know that by virtue of my brief and my closeness to
the deceased, I am very much aware of my client's financial standing, which he
operated here in London. Along with some other passengers, my client died
"INTESTATE" nine years ago in a plane crash as reported on this Site:
www.cnn.com/WORLD/9708/06/guam.passenger.list
I shall assemble all the necessary Legal Documents that will be used to back up
our claims. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this deal
through as the proceeds of this account six million five hundred thousand
united states dollars can be paid to you and then you and I will share the
money; 60% to me and 40% to you.
I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will
protect you from any breach of the law. I am currently in London to execute this
task of finding a substantive or putative beneficiary and willing to disclose
further details depending on your disposition to this matter. Please do not take
offence, but I assure adequate compensation for your time, help and commitment.
Please reply as soon as you get this mail.
Yours faithfully,
Barr. John Mitchell.Esq |
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| Involuntary mailing lists |
[Apr. 17th, 2007|05:07 pm] |
I received an email today from a mailing list to which I did not subscribe. It was a Christian evangelistic email that started as follows:
From: goodword@niconet.za.net
Subject: [Goodword] Good day
Sally jumped up as soon as she saw the surgeon come out of the operating room.
She said: "How is my little boy? Is he going to be all right? When can I see
him?"
The surgeon said, "I'm sorry. We did all we could, but your boy didn't make it."
Sally said, "Why do little children get cancer? Doesn't God care any more? Where
were you, God, when my son needed you?"
The surgeon asked, "Would you like some time alone with your son? One of the
nurses will be out in a few minutes, before he's transported to the university."
I did a little poking around and then composed the following reply (from my gmail address, since I don't want to expose my private email to everyone on the list):
To: goodword@niconet.za.net, goodword-owner@niconet.za.net,
coertzen@mtnloaded.co.za
Subject: Unethical mailing list owners
Jeremy jumped up as soon as he saw the mail arrive in his inbox. He
said: "What is this message? Is it something interesting? Is it a
message from a friend?"
The mail client said, "I'm sorry. I deliver what I get, and this is a
religious spam email."
Jeremy said, "Why do people get signed up to mailing lists without
their consent? Doesn't anyone have any ethical standards anymore?
Where are you, spam fliter, when I needed you most?"
The mail client asked, "Would you like some time to frame a suitable
reply? One of the STMP servers will be waiting whenever you have
overcome your instinctive rage and write something worthy of actually
being read."
--==ooOOoo==--
Who signed me up to this mailing list? Why did I not get a
confirmation email that would allow me to refuse? Why can I not
easily unsubscribe from the list's web interface?
This list (and another which apparently hasn't seen any traffic) seem
to be the only things living on the niconet.za.net domain. The
relevant bits of the whois record (public information, I wouldn't
stoop to revealing anything private in an email of this nature) is as
follows:
Domain Name : niconet.za.net
Registered for : Nico Coertzen
54 Karas Avenue
Vaalpark
1947
South Africa
Administrative Contact : Nico Coertzen <coertzen@mtnloaded.co.za>
Nico Coertzen
54 Karas Avenue
Vaalpark
Free State
1947
South Africa
+27784928570
Mr Coertzen: Is this your list? If not, can you soundly thump
whoever runs it? I am highly unimpressed with this situation and
intend to take matters further if it is not resolved speedily.
Please note that I have sent this from a secondary address, as I do
not wish the address that has been subscribed to the list to be
public.
Thank you,
Jeremy
I now await the response. |
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| Erlang and online games |
[Jan. 11th, 2007|06:04 pm] |
Taken verbatim from an email I sent to a programmer's mailing list I'm on:
I have decided that the only way for me to finally get around to
learning Erlang is to write a nontrivial project in it. To this end, I
have decided to implement a multiplayer online game of some kind.
I'm only really interested in the Erlang backend, so I'm thinking a
text-based MUD of some kind that players can telnet to, but if someone
wants to write a graphical client or something that's also good. A
frontend can be in any language/platform combination as long as I can
run it in Linux for testing.
I could probably do the whole backend thing myself given enough time,
but collaborators make things easier and more fun, especially to bounce
ideas off and discuss bits of code. This is a learning project, so I'm
not expecting anyone to know Erlang at all before they join.
Also, people interested in the game design and worldbuilding aspect are
welcome to help out in just those areas without having to write any
code.
The offer stands here as well. Tell your friends, the more the merrier! |
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| LibraryThing! |
[Jan. 4th, 2007|11:35 pm] |
This evening I was in the rather odd (for me) position of being physically wide awake but mentally drained enough that I didn't actually want to think. Since I've heard about LibraryThing from a couple of places now, I thought I'd sign up and add the few books I have with me in Cape Town. My catalogue is still a little empty (only 20 books in it at the time of writing) but that's all the ones easily reachable. There are another three or four under precarious piles that I didn't want to disturb lest they collapse.
Two comments. Firstly, they have an interesting login/signup system. A single block with place for username and password. If your username exists and the password is correct, you're logged in. If the username doesn't exist, a new account is created. Not as robust to typos as the traditional method, but cleaner and somewhat nifty.
Secondly, their search system. You can only search against external libraries, not within LibraryThing's own database. This means that if I have an ISBN that Amazon or the Library of Congress doesn't know about (quite a few of the books I added, actually) there's no easy way to find someone else with the same edition of the same book and point at that. It's possible with a bit of cunning and patience, but I found I spent too much time fiddling for my liking.
And that's all I have the creative energy for tonight. |
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| My parents enter the wonderful world of ADSL. |
[Jan. 2nd, 2007|10:37 pm] |
First off, happy new year and all that. I begin this year with the same question I have begun the previous few: where the hell is my flying car? We are getting deeper into the realms of the science fiction movies, TV shows and books I have consumed voraciously since the late eighties. A substantial subset of these depicted the future of the early twenty-first century as a rosy place filled with flying cars, hoverboards and regular interplanetary traffic. None of this has yet happened. :-(
Anyways, to the point of the post. I convinced my parents not very long ago that dialup was prohibitively expensive for them nowadays, especially since my dad does a lot of work from home which involves emailing stuff around. They got everything set up, but some extra work was needed from my side.
As some of you may know, I set up a Debian box (henceforth referred to as "coruscant", that being its hostname and all) to do dialup, routing, imap, dhcp, dns, web proxying and all the rest. Since a lot of that is now done by the ADSL router, some configuration changes needed to be made. Since none of the people involved in setting up the ADSL for my parents knew Linux very well (and the stuff on coruscant is a bit odd anyway, since it was the first time I'd set up anything like that and I did quite a lot of tinkering) my expertise was required.
Doing this stuff over the phone is a bit tricky. A lot tricky, actually, since I tend to use passwords that look like line noise and take forever to tell someone. "No, caret. Or circumflex. Whatever you want to call it. The symbol above 6. No, not 6. Hold shift and push 6. Yes, that one." By which time they have already entered a bad symbol and you have to start again. We got as far as disabling DHCP so that the router and the Linux box wouldn't fight, but that was as much pain as we were prepared to endure for one session. So cunning plan number one came into effect.
I got my mother to log into the web interface and we made a surprising amount of progress navigating it, considering that she didn't know what most of it meant and I'd never seen it before so I had only the vaguest of reference points. Despite that, we managed to make sure the port forwarding was enabled, get me the external IP of the router and play with some firewall rules. Despite my best efforts, however, I wasn't able to get through to coruscant from the outside world.
This called for cunning plan number two, concocted on the spot by the most incredibly awesome person ever to post in this blog. (Also the only person ever to post in this blog, but let's not split that hair.) I gently led my mom through opening a PuTTY session to the server, sshing from there to the box hosted in the US that I share with a few other people (henceforth known as "elpis", see above) with a reverse port forward back to the ssh port on coruscant. This let me ssh in through elpis and the tunnel and do mutter the appropriate incantations to demote coruscant from supreme ruler of the network to a humble file/mail/proxy/print/some-other-stuff-I-can't-remember server.
However, this was not good enough. I got hold of my brother this evening (well, he got hold of me) and had him go through the same rigmarole, made easier by the fact that we were communicating by IM instead of phone and I could type the passwords for him to look at. While he was off doing something something else, I tunneled in again, this time setting up port forwards to get to the router's web inteface myself. A little fiddling with that and some dyndns-fu and I managed to get the firewall rules and port forwarding on the router working. So now I can get in without having to have anyone on that side involved in the rituals of power.
There are still some remaining issues, however. For some reason, some of the Windows boxen refuse to talk to http servers out on the web. I have been told that this is a "windows linux conflict" (which I refuse to believe -- the proxy server was broken, but a direct connection (bypassing corucsant) also fails) by someone who supposedly knows what they're doing. Also, we need to wait until our old ISP opens again so we can transfer our domain and point the mail stuff at the new server. But that is a job for another day and it is already past my bedtime. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 19th, 2006|11:35 am] |
Plans for switching data providers proceed apace, with a query on MTN's web form:
I am considering switching from a Vodacom 3G package to MTN. However, I
require a 3G router, which Vodacom provides. The main reason for the switch is
that the provided router has broken firmware and Vodacom seems unwilling to
reply to my complaints. Does MTN offer a package with a router included, or
are there any recommendations for the purchase of a router that will work with
MTN's data card?
I look forward to moving my data contract over to MTN, who have always given me
excellent service on my voice contract.
Just covering all the bases.
Anywhere else I should look? |
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| On social systems |
[Dec. 14th, 2006|10:22 am] |
This post is a conversation I had with a few people online, prompted by a blog post by Colin.
The conversation is behind a cut because it's rather lengthly. I wrote a fun little Ruby script to convert the logs into pretty html that I'll probably put up on my website soon.
( Give me the conversation, already! ) |
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| While I'm in a complaining mood, Ster Kinekor. |
[Dec. 8th, 2006|03:33 pm] |
My submission to their online complaints system:
The online booking system performs incredibly and unnecessarily poorly,
possibly only under load.
I tried to book tickets to Casino Royale last Saturday (2 December) and was
continually met with "System unavailable, retry?" errors. These would occur
every few seconds, even when I was not interacting with the system. I was
unable to complete the booking because there was insufficient time between
failures to enter the movie card numbers for my booking and a failure/retry
cleared the numbers I was entering.
While I have no knowledge of the system other than trying to use it, I believe
the client is continually contacting the server for some reason. All this
unnecessary traffic firstly puts load on the server leading to far more
frequent failures than would normally be the case and secondly leads to
spurious failures that do nothing more than interrupt the user experience and
(in my case at least) result in a lost booking.
All of the issues I have seen on the booking system are solved technical
problems. It remains only to implement the (in most cases) fairly simple
architectural and implementation changes.
I would like to recommend that Ster Kinekor hire some competent web application
engineers to rebuild the system rather than apparently relying on graphic
designers to come up with something flashy but barely functional.
I didn't pull any punches on this one. I'm tired of crap on the web. |
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| More Vodacom 3G woes (continued) |
[Dec. 6th, 2006|11:27 am] |
This is a followup to my previous Vodacom rant.
Good day,
I sent a query from vodacom4me.co.za more than a month ago and have
heard nothing since the email quoted below on the second of November.
(I will not apologise for the formatting. This is how I received the
message myself.)
Vodacom Customer Care wrote:
> Dear JeremyThank you for your e-mail. Kindly be advised that your
> query has been escalted throught to our Data Department for further
> investigation.You will be contacted as soon as possible from someone
> in the data department with feedback.In future they can be contacted
> on 082 155 (free from vodacom).Should you have any further queries,
> please contact us via e-mail at customercare@vodacom.co.za. Warm
> RegardsDeon AndrewsEmail Contact Centre-----Original Message-----From:
> jerith_vodacom@jerith.za.netSent: 2006/11/02 09:34:43 AMTo: Vodacom
> Customer CareSubject: Vodacom4Me Query: Out of date bandwidth usage
> information on vodacom4me.co.za Full name: Jeremy ThurgoodE-mail
> address: jerith_vodacom@jerith.za.netMobile number: 0828294472Mobile
> handset: Message: Good day,I have recently discovered that the
> vodacom4me bandwidth usage information is more than a day out of date.
> Specifically, I used about 10mb on the evening of 2006-10-30 and
> another 10mb on the evening of 2006-10-31. Until last night, my
> October usage claimed approximately 498000kb. This morning, it showed
> 509900.8 KB.On the same page as the usage information is the following
> text:"""Please Note: * Bundled info could be up to 3 hours old."""This
> is clearly inaccurate and could end up costing me a lot of money if I
> base my end-of-month usage on how much bandwidth Vodacom tells me I
> still have available.This website is the only way I can track my
> usage, since my Vodacom-supplied router does not provide any usable
> monitoring information. Usage for the current session is displayed in
> the web interface, but there''s no easy way to automate collection of
> this and if a session should drop unexpectedly (which is not
> uncommon), this information is lost.This time I was lucky, and hadn''t
> used much bandwidth for the few days prior to the 30th, so I didn''t
> go over my limit. This will not usually be the case. What can I
> expect from Vodacom in terms of either ensuring the accuracy of this
> information or compensation for overruns based on out of date
> information? Surely I am not expected to keep track of every byte
> myself. If I am, can the basic tools for this please be provided in
> the router firmware?Thanks,--J “This e-mail is sent on the Terms and
> Conditions that can be accessed by Clicking on this link
> http://www.vodacom.co.za/legal/email.jsp "
This is clearly not as much of an issue to Vodacom as it is to me. I
would like this issue to either be addressed (I'll even settle for a
good reason as to why it can't be addressed and permission to use
third-party firmware without voiding my router's warranty) or
I want to be released from my 3G contract with Vodacom so I can find
another service provider who is more willing to help.
Thank you,
Jeremy Thurgood
Need I say more? |
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| Disturbing new trends in webvertising. |
[Nov. 24th, 2006|10:56 am] |
Two recent trends in web-based advertising have just gotten up my nose to the point where I am ready to LART the people responsible. Unfortunately, they're widespread enough that effective LARTing is impractical.
The first is the now-ubiquitous flash ad. The major problem I have with flash is that it steals all keyboard input. Since my bed browsing is primarily keyboard driven (when I'm reading an article, at least -- I do still click on links most of the time), having the arrow keys and pgup/pgdown suddenly stop functioning is *really* annoying. This morning, however, a new bogeyman reared its ugly head. The flash ad had managed to escape its bounds (probably due to shoddy web design and insufficient testing on major browsers) and cover a large chunk of the text I was tryin to read, as can be seen in this screenshot. To add insult to injury, the feedback process is byzantine to the point of being almost inaccessible.
The second, and rather more subtle, issue is that of embedding textual adverts in the text of an article. This leads to a jarring and somewhat painful context switch on the part of the reader. In the case of Google ads (as seen at physorg.com) the advert is at least somewhat announced and in a recognisable form. Over at thislondon.co.uk they put their own text ads inline, linking to other articles completely unrelated to the one I am currently reading.
Please, STOP THE MADNESS!
This public service announcement is brought to you by the Society For The Prevention Of Monkey-Driven Internets. |
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| Vodacom 3G router woes |
[Oct. 21st, 2006|12:20 pm] |
I finally got around to poking at my 3G router to figure out why the hell the "Connect" button on the web interface was always greyed out. Here's the email, sent from Vodacom's web interface. Note, in particular, the disclaimer on the top of the page source...
Good day,
When using my vodafone-branded Linksys WRT54G3G router (Firmware Version :
v1.99.8) the "connect" button on the "Setup/Basic Setup" screen is always
disabled. This means I have to push the hardware connect button on the
router every time I want to connect, which is often awkward and
inconvenient. Since I don't run Windows, which is the reason I got the
router instead of just the data card, using Internet Explorer isn't an
option for me.
While trying to diagnose the problem, I had a look at the page source and
was rather disturbed at the unnecessarily heavy reliance on JavaScript,
which makes cross-browser compatibility rather more difficult and makes
client-side scripts to fix this kind of thing almost impossible.
Also disturbing was the disclaimer at the top of the page source,
particularly the "not intended for production use" clause:
<!--
*********************************************************
* Copyright 2003, CyberTAN Inc. All Rights Reserved *
*********************************************************
This is UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE of CyberTAN Inc.
the contents of this file may not be disclosed to third parties,
copied or duplicated in any form without the prior written
permission of CyberTAN Inc.
This software should be used as a reference only, and it not
intended for production use!
THIS SOFTWARE IS OFFERED "AS IS", AND CYBERTAN GRANTS NO WARRANTIES OF ANY
KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, BY STATUTE, COMMUNICATION OR OTHERWISE. CYBERTAN
SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS
FOR A SPECIFIC PURPOSE OR NONINFRINGEMENT CONCERNING THIS SOFTWARE
-->
I'm not really sure what this actually means, but it implies sloppiness at
best.
I realise that Vodacom has little to do with the router and its firmware,
but I have no easy way to contact either Vodafone, Linksys or CyberTAN about
this.
Thanks,
--
Jeremy Thurgood
Update:
I go a phone call from a Vodacom tech the other day. Turns out the problem's a bug in the data card drivers and/or firmware. It's not returning some information the webapp wants before it enables the connect button. |
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